


Five Things That Keep Wade Wilson Human

by mmurdock



Category: Deadpool (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-04
Updated: 2012-07-04
Packaged: 2017-11-09 03:57:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/450994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmurdock/pseuds/mmurdock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or:  The cruelty of giving somebody the ability to never die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Things That Keep Wade Wilson Human

01

Rundown little taco places that smell more like pesticide than Mexican food.

Chimichanga, chimichanga, chimichanga.

02

Mirrors, shiny and cracked, show him burn scars in the shape of everything he tries to hide.

Most nights, he dreams of five-legged dinosaurs and Bea Arthur. Other nights, he stares at the ceiling and he counts his regrets from the inside out. He thinks of blood and gunshot wounds and failed military experiments. He remembers, one by one, the faces of everyone he's ever killed. There are too many voices in his head and too many ghosts stuck with him here in his tiny apartment.

"I was made by humans to kill humans," he says, "but I am so fucking tired of watching people die."

"I don't want to be the bad guy anymore," he says.

"So don't be the bad guy anymore," he answers.

Every morning with tired eyes, he stares at the bathroom mirror and tells himself, "I dare you to be a good person."

Most days, it works.

03

Self-loathing. His lungs can drown from it.

"So you're a hero now, huh?" He examines his blades with an expert finger.

"I'm trying," he answers sincerely.

"Well, lemme ask you something though. All those people you save... Do they make up for all the other ones you've killed?"

"I'm trying," he insists.

"It's a pathetic attempt. One life doesn't replace another. Rescue all the people you want. In fact, save all of them. Go ahead, wear a cape, run around and call yourself a hero. It won't change one thing about who you really are. You still smell like a massacre. You still know the exact pressure point to stop a human heart. You know the exact amount of explosives it would take to destroy a family, down to the last milligram. You're covered in blood and none of it is yours-"

"Stop."

"Keep running, Wade."

"Stop running, Wade."

"Look in a mirror and tell me what you see, Deadpool. Because, me? I see ghosts and I see the bones of dead people and pretty people and angry people and I see-"

"Have you ever," he says loudly, desperately, "hated anyone more than you hate yourself?"

The voices inside his head don't answer.

04

The cancer that almost killed him, but he thinks of it as the cancer that didn't kill him. He can't remember what the word 'mortality' means.

05

Death --- is an ancient creature with a broken heart.

He says, "it hurts."

And she says, "I know."

And he says, "so much."

And she says, "I know."

Then, he begs and he pleads and he screams, "Make it stop, please, make it stop."

And she says, "I can't."

Death lingers in the shadowy spots of his vision. She whispers sadly, over and over again, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," until he can't hear anything else.

The next time he sees Death, he is in a hospital room with white curtains.

He asks, "I can't ever die, can I?"

"No, you can't," Death says and looks at him right in the eye, beneath the mask, beneath the cancer and his insanity. "So what are you going to do, Wade?"

Somewhere, his mother is underneath the moonlight, shining in exactly the way he remembers. Somewhere, his father finally comes home. And maybe he isn't much, but at least he is more than the label Weapon X has stapled to his skin.

"Live," Wade says, "I am going to live."

Death smiles at him, beautifully.


End file.
